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The Conduit
The Conduit is a first-person shooter game developed by High Voltage Software, and published by Sega. It is exclusive to the Wii console.IGN: Exclusive First Look: The Conduit The game's story is about an alien invasion in Washington, D.C. by an extraterrestrial race known as The Drudge. An agent named Michael Ford has been assigned by a secret U.S. government agency called The Trust to discover the reason of the invasion. High Voltage Software stated that they want to push the Wii's graphical capabilities, to make The Conduit's visuals comparable to those on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.The Conduit developer High Voltage Software talks shop The Conduit uses the Quantum 3 Engine, which creates graphic effects like dynamic bump-mapping, reflection and refraction, light/shadow maps, projected texture lights, specular and Fresnel effects, light beams/shafts, gloss and detail mapping, seamless resource streaming, projected shadows, heat distortion and motion blur, interactive water with dual-wave channels and complex surface effects, animated textures, and lots more.IGN: Exclusive First Look: The Conduit The Quantum 3 engine also includes advanced artificial intelligence, which allows the beings in The Conduit to possess "human-like behavior". Campaign .]] Setting The Conduit takes place in the near future, in Washington D.C. The city has had many unusual weather patterns, a terrorist attack on the Washington Monument, the assassination of Presidential Candidate Senator Harriet Reimer by her own Secret Service detail, and the appearance of a flu-like illness known as The Bug. Because of this illness, many members of the government staff stay at home, in hopes of not being infected. A secret organization, The Trust, has reached the conclusion that the country is under attack by an extraterrestrial race, codenamed The Drudge, which are the main enemies in the game.The Conduit Game Manual Some of the United States military personnel has been controlled by the Drudge, and a part of the Trust has voluntarily sided with the Drudge. A former Secret Service agent named Michael Ford was recruited to The Trust, as he saved President Charles Thompson from an assassination attempt, and he was the only Secret Service agent who didn't turn against the President. The Trust Commander John Adams, with permission from the President, sent Ford on a crucial mission to investigate the reason behind the Drudge invasion in Washington D.C., to track down a terrorist cell, and retrieve stolen Trust technology.The Conduit Official SiteMichael Ford is the playable character in the campaign mode. The Drudge are divided into: Mites, Drones, Skimmers, Scarabs, and Invaders. Mites are the smallest. Some of them are able to fly and others explode when close to the player. Mites are thought to grow up into the adult forms. Drones are adult-form Drudge that are common soldiers, and Skimmers are an adult-form variation that are smaller than Drones, but can fly. Scarabs are much stronger than Drones, as they are equipped with heavily-armored exoskeletons and Hive Cannons. They are the equivalent of a modern tank. Invaders are biggest and strongest form of the Drudge. The Drudge also incorporate various devices like, the Drudge portal, or Conduit, which allow Drudge enemies to spawn from them until they are destroyed by the player. Other Drudge devices, like a "Regenerator Unit" and "Pulse Box," also appear in the game.The Conduit Game Manual The campaign mode consists of nine missions,PAX: 2008: The Conduit Hands-On which are: *Threshold *Contagion *Enemy *Trust *Gridlock *Invasion *Homeland *Checkmate *Closure Plot Micheal Ford wakes up in a blocked tunnel in the Washington Metro. Apparently, The Drudge are already invading Washington, D.C. Somebody communicating with him, presumably through a microphone, tells him to clear the area. It is unknown who is speaking to Micheal at this time. After passing through some corridors, and eliminating some Drudge forces, Ford finds a large conduit. After the person communicating with him calibrates his suit, he enters the conduit. Five days earlier, when Micheal Ford was a Secret Service agent, John Adams contacts him, and tells him that he is a part of a secret government organization known as The Trust, and that the President has given him permission to recruit Ford for a special assignment. A terrorist known as Prometheus stole a valuable Trust prototype. He and his men are on their way to Reagan National Airport, and Ford, along with Adams' men will be waiting for him. At the airport, The Trust agents turn against Ford, and Adams assumes they are working for Prometheus. Ford makes his way through the airport, encountering canisters of a strange orange gas along the way. This is how Prometheus has turned the Trust agents against him. Ford boards the train that Prometheus is supposed to be using, and fights his way to the front car. One of Prometheus's men, a scientist, detonates several bombs that destroys the train. Ford survives and recovers the prototype, codenamed the All-Seeing Eye (ASE). Mr. Adams reveals that Prometheus was never on board the train, but he has located Prometheus' base under the city in a government bunker. He sends Ford in solo for his own safety. In the bunker, Ford discovers prototype weapons, advanced technology, and a race of aliens known as the Drudge. He manages to hack into the computer mainframe with the ASE and steals secret files detailing an alien invasion. He emerges from the bunker near the Jefferson Memorial. Mr. Adams praises him for his prowess, but then turns on him and leaves to die as a whole Drudge militia converge on the Memorial. Ford is contacted by the "terrorist" Prometheus through the ASE who says he wants to help him. Ford decides to go along with him for now and purges the Memorial of the Drudge attack force. Prometheus then sends a helicopter to pick Ford up. He informs Michael of a Drudge nest under the Library of Congress. Ford arrives at the Library to find it overrun by human puppets and Drudge forces. He slowly makes his way to the main Reading Room where Prometheus hacks into the Trust mainframe. This opens a path to the sewers, but also releases a swarm of flying Para-Mites. Ford manages to take them out and jumps down into the sewers below the Library. After navigating the twisting passageways and tunnels he finds himself in a huge room filled with egg sacs of every type. Ford manages to clear out the nest and escape back to higher ground. Prometheus informs Michael that the Trust now plan to kill the President to gain complete control of America. Ford makes his way into the White House, encountering Drudge and Trust forces at every turn. He gets news from Prometheus that the president is being evacuated and is trapped by the Drudge on Marine One, the president's private chopper. Ford encounters several new types of Drudge, including the flying Skimmers and the more heavily armed Scarab. Ford manages to free the helicopter from the Drudge forces and it flies away to safety. But Prometheus intercepts a conversation between the president and Mr. Adams saying that the President has given the Trust almost unlimited control of the nation's resources after the stellar performance of one of Adam's "agents" at the White House. The Drudges' next target is the Pentagon. The Trust believe to protect the country, they have to control it. Ford makes his way through the ransacked buildings of downtown Washington D.C. on his way to the Pentagon. Along the way he encounters a massive Drudge Invader and the full-grown Scarab warriors. At the Pentagon, Ford hacks into the government mainframe and recovers the files that the Trust desire just as the Drudge arrive. Here, he has his first fight with a cloaked Storm Scarab, which is invisible until he wreaks havoc with its cloaking device with the ASE. He clears out the control room, then starts heading towards the courtyard, where Prometheus has planned him an escape route. Once outside, he faces several Drones and cloaked Storm Scarabs. As soon as they are all defeated, the Invader bursts through the walls of the Pentagon and attacks Ford. The massive alien can launch twin projectiles not unlike those of Shriekers and can unleash a small swarm of Para-Mites. After a long, intense battle, the Invader falls under Ford's onslaught. The sheer number of Drudge at the Pentagon tells Prometheus that the nest under the Library of Congress was not their primary source. While Ford makes his way out of the Pentagon, he will try to locate the Drudge's true point of origin. Prometheus has limited the possible place of the Drudge nest to a two mile radius, somewhere near the Potomac River district. Ford is at first opposed to the idea of running through miles of enemy territory, but Prometheus eventually convinces him how important it is. Ford starts heading in that direction, but must pass through the streets of Washington, D.C. In an alleyway, he sees the President's helicopter, Marine One, attacked by Skimmers and Mites. The helicopter turns away from Ford, and a crash is heard in the background. Along the way, Ford kills many Drudge, including all of the forms encountered so far. Prometheus then tells him to enter the subway. Ford does as he is told, and enters the Washington Metro. He passes through some tunnels and finds Drudge forces, but no human enemies. Prometheus guesses that the Drudge must be using Union Station to spread throughout the city, and that he is getting closer to the Drudge nest. Ford uses the ASE to move a subway car blocking the tunnel to Union Station. When Ford enters that tunnel, he sees the same collapsed tunnel that was shown when he woke up. It is now assumed that Ford is at the same place he was in at the start of the game, and he even goes through the same corridors and tunnels. He finds the large conduit shown at the beginning, and destroys all the Drudge surrounding it, including a Scarab. After Prometheus calibrates his suit, Ford enters the conduit. At this point, the story is no longer in the past, and five days have passed since John Adams first contacted Ford. Multiplayer The multiplayer mode in The Conduit can only be played online, which means that it can be accessed though the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. High Voltage Software previously stated that it would support up to 16 players, but later reduced it to 12.IGN: Multiplayer Features in The Conduit The multiplayer mode supports voice chat through the Wii Speak peripheral. In team based games, players can hear all the members of their team, while in Free for All matches, players can only hear the six players closest to them.IGN: Multiplayer Features in The Conduit High Voltage Software has also stated that they had plans to include LAN (Local Area Network) multiplayer but according to Nintendo Power, after much persuasion from Nintendo, the plans had to be dropped. Matchmaking The Conduit has a system that lets players join random matches by selecting one of the following preferences: Friends, which lets you join or create private matches with people added as friends; Regional, which searches for player in the players region; or World Wide, which searches for players around the world. After the player has chosen one of those options, they can chose one of the three game categories (Free-For-All, Team Reaper, and Team Objective) and they will join a match with a gametype in the category they chose.The Conduit Instruction Booklet, pg. 14. Gametypes Free-For-All. It's every man for himself. *Quick Match: The first player to reach the kill limit wins. *Marathon: Player with the most kills at the end of the match wins. *Three Strikes: Players only have three lives each. *Last Man Standing: Players only have three lives each. *ASE Football: Player who holds the ASE the longest wins. *Bounty Hunter: Each player has a target that they must kill for points. You lose points if you kill players that aren't your targets. The player with the most points wins. Team Reaper. Players are divided into two teams: Red vs. Blue. *Quick Match: The first team to reach the kill limit wins. *Marathon: The team with the most kills at the end of the match wins. *Shared Stock Match: Each team shares lives from one pool. The team that depletes the enemy team's life pool wins. Team Objective. Players are divided into two teams, and must capture the enemy team's ASE. Similar to "capture the flag", but with the ASE. *Quick Match: The first team to reach the capture limit wins. *Marathon: The team with the most capture at the end of the match wins. *Killing Override: The first team to reach capture limit or kill limit wins. *Single ASE: There is only one ASE. The first team to reach the capture limit wins. *Pentagon *Complex *Sanctum *Infirmary *Streets *Warehouse Character skins Playable character skins include:The Conduit's Josh Olson and Rob Nicholls Discuss Multiplayer, Aliens, Weapons and Why It's a Wii Exclusive *Agent *Drudge Drone *Guard *Scientist *Secret Agent (can only be accessed with a code found in the Limited Edition) Weapons Human Weapons * USP45 (Pistol) * SCAR (Assault Rifle) * MP5KA4 (Sub-machine gun) * SPAS (Shotgun) * SMAW (Rocket launcher) Drudge weapons *Warp Pistol * Shrieker * Hive Cannon * Strike Rifle Trust weapons *TPC Launcher *Deatomizer Mk4 *Carbonizer Mk16 Prototype Weapons *Striker *HVS45 *Deatomizer Mk9 Grenades * Fragmentation grenade * Radiation grenade * Stun grenade Audio High Voltage Software Audio Video Director, Michael Metz, chose composer Diego Stocco to compose the The Conduit's score. After the tracks were composed, Rick Nielson from the rock band Cheap Trick supplied guitar riffs that were laid over the musical score.The Sounds of The Conduit While composing the music, Diego Stocco created unique instruments, such as "a Megaphonic Resodrum (Acoustic timbre coloration with controlled distortions), a DistroDrum (overdriven acoustic drum coupled with a resonant toy piano), Unorthodox Cymbals (hanging cymbals played with a wooden saw), a Light Controlled Oscillator (connected to a vintage reverberation amplifier) and a Metal Contrabass (bowed piano and bass strings mounted on a garage heater)".The Sounds of The Conduit Marketing There were various marketing techniques used to promote The Conduit. One of these was a website known as Seeing Is Deceiving where various messages in Drudge language appeared. The messages can be typed in a text box. Some may lead to wallpapers, icons, gameplay videos, audio, developer interviews, and conspiracy articles that would fill in The Conduit's background story. On September 18, 2008, High Voltage Software announced that they would accept user-created control scheme configurations for The Conduit. The Lead Programmer, Ed Federmeyer, explained, "Given how flexible our control scheme code is, and how we're going to have several pre-set mappings to choose from ... wouldn't it be a cool contest to allow gamers to propose schemes and we can take the best and burn them into the game as additional preset control mappings?"Take Control of The Conduit On January 15, 2009, three winners were announced by Lead Designer Rob Nicholls in a video of The Conduit. ACIDPlanet.com launched a video mash-up contest on May 1, 2009. In this contest, participants had to create music and video remixes of The Conduit. ACIDPlanet.com provided 66 instrumental tracks of game audio from The Conduit, as well as the tools necessary to remix. When the participants were finished, they simply uploaded their video. The winner received merchandise from Sony Creative Software, Sega, and High Voltage Software. The winning remixes were included as a bonus track on The Conduit's soundtrack.The Conduit to Get Mashed-Up Editions The Conduit was shipped in two editions: the Standard Edition, which has the game disc, and manual; and the Limited Edition, which is exclusive to GameStop, and includes what is included in the Standard Edition, plus a 24-Page art book featuring concept art, a custom in-game All Seeing Eye, Secret Agent Multiplayer skin, and an All-Seeing Eye alternate box art.The Conduit GameStop Exclusive Limited Edition Awards * Best Wii Shooter of E3 (IGN.com) References Category:Main Article Hierarchy Category:Wii